That's the welcome you find when you land on the newly created DUGAN FITNESS Facebook Page. And what an encouraging message!

The public group was started by Marco Lewis who works in Maintenance at Dugan in West Point. Marco believes fitness is a key component to a person's happiness.

Lewis, a long-term MSS employee, has been at Dugan for two years, after completing a 12 year tenure at Trinity in Columbus. He says both places have provided him a great family environment to grow and work. "Families share things together and although I am a big weight-lifter, I felt like I needed to do more to get in shape so Barry {Dugan Maintenance Director} and I started talking about things we could do to improve."

"Dugan Fitness started with Barry and I talking about a burpee challenge we saw on the internet,"explained Lewis. "Barry said, 'let's do it!' so we decided to do it. I was telling another coworker about it and she said she wanted to join. I wondered if others would be interested in joining so I talked to Shelley {Dugan Executive Director} and she thought it was a great idea."

Marco acted on this interest and created a chat group so the challenge members could discuss details and encourage each other. Realizing not everyone has Messenger, Lewis decided a public Facebook page would be a good way to post challenges, share their journey and celebrate achievements. After getting permission, he designed a logo for the page, set up administrators and posted the first challenge.

The page is filled with joy! Yes, that's right! A fitness page filled with joyful comments and laughter. Lewis posts the challenge along with a photos of the progress each person has made. Then the participants share their fitness experiences with each other. In the early posts, the comments ranged from "I'm dying..." to  "I didn't think I was going to get up off the floor." But now, the comments are filled with pride as they claim their victories and relate how the challenge has helped them. Posts are often followed up with special encouragement from Lewis who is known to say, "Nothing to it but to do it!"

At the time of print, the 30 Day Burpee Challenge had 29 participants who proudly mark their achievements on the board for everyone to celebrate, and all of this is shared on Facebook too.

Lewis has recruited other employees to help him with the challenge. Barry Morris is featured in a video demonstrating how a burpee is done. Daphne Roby, Tawana Dearing and Shameka Jackson help with the page administration as well.

"I am so excited to see many of our staff participating in a fitness challenge this month,"stated Shelley Tuggle, Executive Director. "30 days, 30 burpees is not for the light of heart. It has been wonderful to hear and see staff encouraging and checking up on one another to be sure we are all keeping up. It's fun to come in each day and mark your progress and see how others are doing. As one that is older and more out of shape to start, it is fun showing each day that I can keep up with the more fit ones. Anytime someone who works here wants to join in and do something that can better life for us all, I am glad to support them."

"I'm excited to see so many people taking simple steps to improve their health," said Lewis. "We can all go at our own pace. Any step toward good health is a good one, even if its small."

Lewis said the Dugan fitness challenges will continue each month focusing on various areas that each participant is concerned with improving. "Everyone is going to put their ideas into the hat and we will draw one out each month and that will be our challenge. One month it may be crunches, another squats and the next jumping jacks."

Marco points out that there are benefits beyond the just the physical fitness. He related a story about a participant who knew a coworker that she never really talks to because they don't work in the same area. Now that they are both participating in the challenge, when they pass in the hall, they will ask how the other one is doing with their challenge. "She said that this led to real conversations about work and family too. Building relationships like that just makes us mentally healthy too!"

Marco says he hopes the Dugan Fitness Challenge will inspire other campuses to get fit together. "Maybe one day we can have a challenge between all the campuses to see which one can get the most people to hit their goal."